Today's speech by Ed Miliband is powerful stuff and an honest, appropriate response to Falkirk but this is not just about 'Labour and the Unions'. Below I share more of my personal experience than is usual on this 'company' blog - experience of Labour's Parliamentary selection process itself. I've framed it as an 'open letter to Ed Miliband'; in fact, it's an open letter to all in politics...
Trust in Politics and the selection of Labour
Party Parliamentary Candidates
An open letter to Ed Miliband
Dear Ed
We worked together when you were
Minister for the Third Sector at the Cabinet Office and I was CEO at the
independent charity, the Citizenship Foundation. I have been a member of the party since the
age of 16 and have long held a commitment to the importance of political
engagement in all its guises.
My own recent experience of the
Labour Party's parliamentary selection process has, though, been extremely
disheartening - not because of the behaviour of some trade unions (which you
are right to tackle and challenge) but because of the behaviour of a local
party so determined to install a favoured candidate (one named as such on the
‘inside’ from the beginning) that it failed to long list a range of talented
candidates on the grounds that it had been overwhelmed with applications. It
subsequently provided local members with a shortlist of two (which hardly
amounts to a 'list' at all), who then selected the long-tipped individual, the
one that the local party had sought to 'protect' from challenge throughout the
process. This individual may prove to be
a terrific candidate but they deserve to pass the test of a fair, rigorous
process and others deserve the right to enter the contest.
My request from the local party
for feedback was refused (I was told that detailed notes were not taken and no
scoring mechanism was used – it seemed that standard equal opportunities
practice had yet to influence the process of selecting parliamentary
candidates, at least in some local Labour Parties) and discussions with the
regional party proved fruitless because the local party had, I was assured,
'followed the (now revised) rules'. Conveniently, this selection was held under
the ‘old’ process, one that was revamped earlier this year.
My point is that the commitment
to deal with those who seek to unfairly install candidates on behalf of trade
unions (while welcome) is insufficient
if it is not matched with a commitment to reform local party selection itself,
to tackle local (albeit declining) fiefdoms and to end that other privileged
(and increasingly dominant) route into parliament - from intern
to think tank to special adviser to safe seat.
Open primaries may or may not be
an answer (and I think that it is right to explore their potential) but, as
you argue, a better and more open, more inclusive politics certainly is. As somebody who has worked on the ‘project’
of building trust in politics for over a decade and who now works as a public
policy analyst committed to opening up access to politics, I would welcome the
opportunity to discuss these issues with you and to assist the party's efforts
in this regard.
I do hope that whoever is charged
with sifting responses to your speech passes this one to you. In any case, I welcome the debate that you
have started.
Best wishes in all that you are
seeking to do.
Yours,
Tony Breslin
Director
Breslin Public Policy Limited
0330 660 0525 / 07973 885 915
tony.breslin@breslinpublicpolicy.com
www.breslinpublicpolicy.com
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